Did you know that 50% of all UK donations are expected to be made online by 2020, up from 15% in 2015? Or that 45% of the public already expect donating online or by their phone to take less than 1 minute? This week's blog covers a few digital basics which could serve as a starting point or checklist to ensure you're on the right track.

An increasing number of charities are using smartphone apps to fundraise, provide services and connect with supporters. But - are apps feasible for all charities to utilise, and can the third sector hope to keep up with fast-paced and constant changes in technology and user expectations?

The time has come again to reflect on the last 12 months and thank our clients and partners for inspiring us to keep researching topical issues in the sector with 12 free reports.

We’re constantly developing and refining the research methods we use in order to continue to deliver high quality insight for charities. We piloted the use of online communities for market research in the not-for-profit sector in 2015; see what we discovered.

Thanks to digital technologies the speed with which we can complete research is faster than ever, and can be almost instantaneous in some cases.

We invited charity and non-profit professionals to take part in our short survey and share their wisdom on what a good level of Gift Aid looks like for them. Now we are feeding back the insights to the sector.

We would like to thank our clients and partners for inspiring us to keep researching the topical issues in the sector. As part of our Social Investment programme we regularly produce Free Reports and feed our finding back to the sector so any charity regardless its size or sector can find something useful. Here are the 12 popular reports this  year.

There is little doubt that digital technology has transformed the lives of people in the UK. Alongside the digital giants such as Google and Yahoo who exist purely because of the digital world, startups like Uber or WhatsApp have incorporated technology into their business models and now thrive. Online shopping and banking is getting more comfortable than offline experience with these industries. Even government has got the digital bug, with the vast majority of government services now available via the gov.uk website. 

This week’s blog is by Rebecca Fitzgerald, founder of StrawberrySocial Ltd – a social media management agency.  Rebecca has a background in digital and project management for corporations and charities.

Joe Saxton looks at what the coming decade looks like for charities